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I worked beside Raven for two rows of tiles until my arms started to ache and I was sweating. I powered off my nail gun and set it aside. I laid against the tile and planted a bent elbow over my eyes to block out the sun. There was a small bite to the wind that felt good, but the sun was trying to roast me on the dark tile roof. I hated that it felt like I was wimping out but my sore arm needed a break.
“Little thief,” Raven called to me over his shooting gun. A moment later I heard it powering down. “What’s wrong with you? Did you eat this morning?”
“No.”
He grunted. “Remind me to kick Brandon’s ass. I can’t trust him to even feed you.”
“I need a Big Mac,” I said without moving my arm. “I need tacos. And a steak. And maybe spaghetti.”
“Just stay there,” he said. “I’ll go find something.”
“No problem.” That sounded like an awesome plan. Food being brought to me was always the best sort of food.
I heard him make his way to the ladder and then it clanged as he made his way down.
A few minutes after he was gone, I sat up, letting the blood flow down slowly. I picked up the nail gun. I wanted to finish his row of tiles and at least get that done before he got back. It was my way to thank him for reading my mind.
A shout erupted from the ground somewhere above the noise of the nail gun going off in my hand. I thought for a moment it was Raven maybe asking me what I really wanted to eat since I gave him a big list to choose from.
I took my nail gun with me and eased myself closer to the ladder where I could see the front lawn.
Marc stood there, his hands on his hips. He wore a pair of jeans and a blue T-shirt. From the way he stared up at me, with his angled chin pointed upward, I caught the scruff of his unshaven face. “Hey,” he shouted. “Are you up there by yourself?”
“There you are,” I called down to him. I suddenly hated that I was on the roof now. Made it harder to yell at him. I had to shout louder. “Where have you been?”
He squinted up at me. His brown hair swept across his eyes against the breeze. He planted his boot on the lowest rung of the ladder, grabbing the end as if he was going to hold it in place. “What?” he asked, shouting up at me.
“Are we done chasing Coaltar yet?”
“No.”
I grunted. “Then what are we doing here? Shouldn’t we be chasing him or something? I can’t stay here forever. Wil—”
“He’s fine,” Marc said. “You aren’t. Coaltar is looking for you.”
“But—”
“Do you want to lead him back to your hotel room? Do you want him to know who you really are? You already fucked up yesterday and we need to get the camera back.”
“Did you get the camera?”
“Tonight,” he shouted. “We had to track it down first and someone’s going to be risking his neck an awful lot to retrieve it. Coaltar may already know who you are if they looked at it. You have to stay with us probably forever now.” He smirked at that, like he really didn’t disapprove of the idea. Like he found it funny that my whole life got turned upside down.
“He knows Brandon! Brandon’s out here doing things. What’s the difference? I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Brandon sticks with us. There is no difference.”
I groaned. He was impossible. I aimed the end of the nail gun down at him. “Why are you being a jerk? Just let me call Wil so he’s not freaking out.”
“No contact,” he said. “You probably shouldn’t even be here. You need to go off the radar for a while.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Stop pointing the nail gun at me for one.”
I lifted the gun up, pointing at the air above me. “Tell me why I shouldn’t pop a nail down at you right now.”
“What?”
“You told me one job,” I said. “One pickpocketing thing. Now you’re saying I’m stuck with you all until you figure out Coaltar? But you’re not even doing that now. You’re building a roof.”
Marc shrugged. “He’s not doing anything right now. We’re waiting him out. We’re trying to make sure he forgets about you.”
“How am I supposed to get a job if I’m supposed to go under the radar?”
“You can stay with us until we figure this out. Stop yelling at me.” He took a step back. “You shouldn’t be up there by yourself. Why didn’t they give you a hardhat?”
“Don’t come up here. I might shoot you with this thing.”
“Try it.”
I don’t know what came over me. Maybe his attitude and the fact that I was worried about not hearing from Wil. Overnight was one thing. Now that I was hearing it from Marc’s lips that I may be here for a month or even longer, I was terrified for my brother. How would I even know he was okay if I couldn’t hear from him? What if Coaltar had him now?
Wil would start looking for me if I didn’t contact him soon. He’d think something happened to me. He’d be alone to deal with Jack every night. I’d let them talk me into staying away this long, lured by their promises.
I aimed the gun down, toward the grass at Marc’s feet. I pulled back on the safety. I just wanted to scare him. And shooting nails felt good.
“Bambi!” he called in a warning tone. “Don’t you dare.”
I pulled the trigger.
The moment I did it, I regretted it. I knew it was wrong, even just to scare him.
I lost track of where the nail went. Once it popped out of the gun, the wind caught against my eyes and blurred my vision a bit.
Marc stepped back and then fell on his butt into the grass. He reached forward, putting his hand around his knee in a protective move. “Shit! Bambi!”
And then I saw the blood.
My heart stopped. I released the nail gun safety slowly. What did I just do?
DESOLATE
An hour later, I was sitting in a hospital waiting room. Axel drove, and the guys left the nail in the leg after calling a doctor to ask what to do. They didn’t want us to just pull it out, in case it was holding an important artery together or something.
I’d climbed down from the roof, feeling out of place and unsure of what to do. The guilt was heavy on my lungs and made it hard to breathe, hard to focus.
Marc didn’t say a word to me on the drive over. No one did. I replayed the event in my mind, of how they swarmed on him, and collectively worked together to carry him into the car. Raven, Kevin and Brandon stayed behind to finish what they could, mostly at Marc’s insistence since he said it wasn’t that bad.
And Marc had lied to them. He said he did it to himself. Accident. He shot himself in the leg and then rushed down the ladder so they didn’t have to carry him down.
He lied to protect me. And all I did was stare at him in silence. He didn’t even look at me. I wasn’t sure if I should contradict him and confess the truth. I worried the boys would hate me after. And then I felt horrible because Marc lied to his friends, which made the guilt of shooting him in the leg so much worse.
Axel was the one who addressed the emergency room nurses and handled nearly everything. Corey was there and helped, but soon Axel told him to take the car and go back to the work site. Neither of them said anything about me, and I wasn’t sure where they wanted me to go, but Corey left without inviting me along, maybe assuming
I wanted to stay. I wasn’t sure if I should, if Marc would want me to stay and then I felt horrible again for wanting to bail when it was my fault he was here in the first place.
I sat alone. Axel was with Marc somewhere deeper inside the hospital. I think Axel had told me to go with him, but I ignored him. If Marc didn’t invite me, I didn’t feel comfortable going. I didn’t think he wanted me to. Not after what I’d done.
I sat in a sofa, facing a wide window that looked out across the parking lot and at the buildings across the way in downtown Charleston. There was a television on the wall nearby tuned to CNN. Nurses and visitors walked by occasionally. I ignored it all. I leaned forward, my head in my hands, staring at the floor.
I told myself I should go. I should get up and walk out. Wouldn’t it be a relief to them if I just disappeared? The hotel room was paid for. I could get a job in another town and wire money to Wil somehow. I had been wrong to think when this Coaltar thing passed, that the boys and I could possibly work together. I wasn’t the sort to work with anyone. I didn’t play well with others.
Why did I have to be so angry all the time? Was that how I was going to live for the rest of my life? Jumping in head first without thinking? Shooting nail guns at people in a stroke of fury? Axel was right. He shouldn’t have taught me about guns because now I wanted to fire off a bunch of them just to let this burning energy out of my body. And the only thing I wanted to shoot at was myself for being so stupid.
Walking away seemed easier. They’d done enough for me, and I knew what I was like. Look at the trouble I’d caused already. Brandon was a potential target for Coaltar now, and perhaps Corey, too, since he was with us yesterday. It was obvious now that they were brothers, when that detail may have slipped by them before. I shot Marc in the leg. Would Raven be next? Or Axel?
Every time I told myself to stand up and walk out, I couldn’t move. I was terrified of who I’d run into next and end up hurting in some way.
I sensed someone sitting beside me and without even needing to look, knew it was Axel. Even as his boot and jean-clad ankle came into view, I couldn’t get myself to sit up. Staring off at the floor numbed out my feelings.
